STIRRING

Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.

Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.

The rental

I blame historical romances forThe house I bought because, of course, Mayfair,The one in central California, wasa neighborhood well-known to the police;My house, a duplex on some dirt with junk:one half a crack den; and the other a hutchfor a woman who kept broken glass on handto climb into her windows. This would be

two rents for my retirement, a sinkholefor my extra cash, a broken cup to catchmy hopes and dreams , like syllables in stressed based feet.

To start, I made a list, and then we clearedthe dustpans full of mice and roaches, the potin bags inside the closet, the kiddy pornwith blank faced toddlers, the sconces with missing bulbs—too much for me alone—And then we moved

on to the yellow bathtub, the crusty toilet,the orange spotted basin. . The stove and fridge …just too far gone, the kitchen cabinetsand all the closets oozing a paste, part grease,

part sand, part fecal matter. As we cleaned,we’d have to stop to fix what strangers brokeat night, the bedroom window nearly priedout of its frame, the new solar lights knocked offthe eaves, the brick and shards inside the living room,the human turds at both the doors (again),and all the while the climbing tenant highor off her meds, expertly popping outthe kitchen window by twisting at its catch,and opening to spew alternative selves,

which I ignored while dealing with the overpaidhelp—the guy who cleared the junk (one rent), the galwho pressure-washed the walls (another rent),the licensed electrician of the fansthat spun like blenders and glared like runway lights.

But my biggest nag was tucked behind it all:The backyard, a sad slab of cement—a little ponchy, very cracked, and hot,so bare and living it could be a lab.Still, it made me think of sonnets, so …

I had three flower boxes cut and trimmedin a doublestrand of bricks: in one, the birdsof paradise; inside the other two,a pair of scented trees; around them all,a ring of roses, jasmine, lavender,bright nose-dull agapanthus; and tucked against

a corner, on a post, the resin formof the Guadalupe, the mother of God, the onewho’s standing on an angel and the moon,who dresses in a cloak of stars, the onewhose comfort is a scold: “Am I not here—I who am your mother?” I put her there

under an arch of metal leaves, beyonda pool of roses humbled into smallsaround a fountain, there between two mission lamps,and there before a bench for contemplation.

She’s been there, watching for an entire year:The pair of cats that sprayed new carpeting,The novice cook who stained the kitchen tableWith skillet burns that overlapped into a wreath,The waffle shoe that snapped my toothpick shrubsIn twos and threes each time I replanted them,The scrawny dog that spent its time crouchedTo crap and crap and crap and crap and crap—brown crap, black crap, green crap, putty crap, puddle crap—on pavement, bricks, flowers, the water drips,the finger marked glass blades the tenant pulledout of the ground when she couldn’t get inside,the sagging roof, the rusting swamp coolers, the twodead branches from a tree that shades the house,both large, stretched out above the carport, darkagainst the sky, like twin swords of Damocles,the couplet from a poem about to end,or fingers pointing from art or random shit.

Taking shape

Knitting starts with a loop,sometimes a knot. In either case, it’s a holein space small enoughto catch another hole and then anotherhole until a line … and then a plane or a tube is formed,

as solid as the back of a sweater,as thick as a mitten, as sheeras a pair of silk stockings, workedclosed for modestyor eyeleted for summer lace.

But there’s more than that.There’s startingwith the loop and line, loopingthat line into a ring, weavinga tail into the hole, stacking holesonto more holes and crowdingmore holes between to drawshapes around the central space:

For hexagons that lie flat, increase1 stitch on 2 sides of 6stitches over rounds divisible by 3 so that every 6thround there is a total of 24

more stitches, like the 24 hours in a dayor the 24 months in 2 yearsor the 24 years of adulthood betweenyouth and middle age.

The 24 is importantbecause the ratio has to bean average of 8 every other round,and so is the 6 because 6 is the number of sides

the form aspires to be.

1 increase on 2 sides of 4 stitches over evenrounds makes a square;1, on 1 side of 8 makes an octagon, a wheelWith spokes if they alternate, a swirl if they’re kepton 1 side or the other all the time,

in either case motion, speed, ineluctability.It’s knowing howto work it out:

1 stitch on both sides of 3 over 2rounds, with 1 round at rest, for a triangle;

1 stitch on 2 sides of 5 over every 2ndand 5th of 5 for a pentagon;

1 stitch on both of 7over every 3rd, 6th, and 9thof 10 for a heptagon;

1 on 2 of 9over the 4th and 9th of 9for a nonagon(who knew?);

for a decagon, both sidesof 10 over every 5th;

and for an undecagon, (11 sides,not the opposite of 10), 1on 2 sides of 11over the 5th, 10th, 16th,and 22nd of 22.

A circle is just a duplicationof all stitches on rounds that are the doubleof the 1 increasedbefore, starting with 2: 4, 8,16, 32, 64 ….

always the 8,always the spaces,always the spiral until

it's boundoff into a solid self.

Ana Garza G'z has an M. F. A. from California State University, Fresno, where she teaches part-time. Sixty-five of her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, most recently in _The New Verse News_. She also works as an interpreter and translator.